Window time. Winter's Eve, cold and useless outside, I hated it. My mother thought it was beautiful, the snow that was really chipped ice, swirling around in the wind, consuming everything in sight, eating, eating. I was cold, I was always cold during window time, and she yelled at me if I closed the curtains.

I put another sweater on and found her in the living room. She was drinking hot chocolate, her eyes distant. She looked dangerous, her beauty unconcealed like always. It was quiet; all I could hear was the wind.

"Sometimes people go crazy in weather like this," she said. "They lock themselves up and listen to the voices in their heads."

My mother, cold and alone. She says that we belong this way, we don't deserve anybody, that they don't deserve us. We must be strong. Our beauty will get us what we want, that we should use it to hurt them, like they hurt us.

I hated it when she called me beautiful. I was ugly. Small, stupid, and ugly.